English 2110: World Literature. Historical survey of selected world literatures.

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1 DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH COURSE DESCRIPTIONS Fall 2015 This page provides details about the courses we are offering this semester. For the latest information about a course s status, availability, time, and prerequisites, please consult GoSOLAR ( Undergraduate Course Offerings: Lower Division English 1101: English Composition I A composition course designed to increase the student's ability to construct written prose of various kinds. Focuses on methods of organization, analysis, research skills, and the production of short argumentative and expository essays; readings consider issues of contemporary social and cultural concern. English 1102: English Composition II A composition course designed to develop writing skills beyond the levels of proficiency required by English Stresses critical reading and writing and incorporates a variety of more advanced research methods; readings will be drawn from a wide variety of literary texts. English 1103: Advanced English Composition. Dr. Wharton. This section of ENGL1103H is designed to provide students with a foundation in academic research and writing processes, and to develop fundamental digital literacy that will be useful in a variety of academic and non-academic contexts. We will explore how digital technology is transforming learning, teaching, and communication. How does technology influence how knowledge, power, and authority are distributed within a culture? How will or how should such technologies shape our legal definitions of key concepts such as privacy, "person," intellectual property, and freedom in the near future? How might we, as individuals, make what Howard Rheingold calls "mindful" decisions about our own use of digital technology, and our own digital identities and behaviors online? These are some of the questions we will take up and examine in our reading and writing. Projects will range from traditional to creative and experimental, and will emphasize digital literacy, audience and contextual awareness, process and reflection, and multimodal composition. English 2110: World Literature. Historical survey of selected world literatures. English 2120: British Literature. Dr. Hirsh. This course will explore a selection of masterpieces of English literature from the medieval period to the present, including two plays, two novels, a prose satire, a narrative poem, and a variety of lyric poems. We will consider specific psychological, social, and philosophical issues raised by these works, as well as the artistic techniques they employ and the challenges they create for listeners, playgoers, and readers. Attention will also be paid to the social, political, cultural, and artistic contexts in which these works were produced and to such concepts as genre, poetic form, plot, characterization, figurative language, theme, point of view, irony, and audience. The course is designed to help students improve their skills in reading

2 between the lines of works of literature and in conducting rigorous empirical analysis. The main goal of the course is to help students become more thoughtful, imaginative, and sophisticated readers, playgoers, and writers. Required texts include: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice; Samuel Beckett. Waiting for Godot; Jane Collier An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting; Charles Dickens, Great Expectations; William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice; and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, trans. W. S. Merwin. English 2130: American Literature. Historical survey of literature from the United States, with consideration of literary genres, conventions, and modes. The course explores issues such as periodization, canon formation, national identity, and the interrelationships between literature and other elements of culture. Undergraduate Course Offerings: Upper Division English 3040: Introduction to Literary Studies. Materials, methods, and terminology used in the discipline of literary studies. Practice in effective critical writing and examination of the various critical theories available for interpretation and analysis. Serves as one of the two Critical Thinking Through Writing (CTW) courses required of all English majors. English 3050: Introduction to Rhetoric and Advanced Composition. Dr. Lopez. Introduces students to key terms, figures, and events in the global history of practicing and teaching rhetoric, with examination, through reading and critical writing, of the legacy of communication technologies from ancient to contemporary cultures. Serves as one of the two Critical Thinking Through Writing (CTW) courses required of all English majors. English 3080: Persuasion: History, Theory, and Practice of Argumentative Writing. Dr. Lopez. Introduces students to studies in analyzing written arguments, studying argumentation theories, and producing persuasive texts for specific audiences. Includes global readings from ancient to contemporary times. English 3090: Exposition: History, Theory and Practice. Dr. Wharton. This course builds on the competencies developed in English 1101 and 1102, with a special emphasis on multimodal, multimedia composition intended to explain, inform, and describe. Expository composition is rhetorical; it has a purpose, audience, author(s), and context. Consequently, this course will continue to develop your ability to identify, analyze, and respond to rhetorical situations. The other primary subject matter of this course will be the material world of objects through which we move in our day to day lives. We will consider why we are driven to create, use, consume, and accumulate things. Why and how do we form emotional attachments to inanimate objects? What do the possessions we own say about us about our social and economic status, our cultural and ethnic identities, our psychological profile? To what extent is human behavior and expression dependent upon tools, prostheses, and other material goods? Does being human require a world of objects against which or through which we can define

3 ourselves? These are the sorts of questions the field of material culture studies has evolved to answer, and these are the questions we will take up and examine in our reading and writing. Projects will range from traditional to creative and experimental, and will emphasize information literacy, audience and contextual awareness, process and reflection, and multimodal composition. For more information about this course, visit the Spring 2015 page: English 3100: Composition Studies: History, Theory, and Practice. Dr. Harker. This course examines theories of composition and explores writing's impact on our personal, public, and professional lives. We will explore foundational concepts theorized by major leaders in the field of composition and rhetoric; through closereadings of texts, students will gain an understanding of what writing specialists have debated and discovered about how people learn to write and best practices for teaching writing. We will trace histories of writing instruction and examine current social, political, and ideological issues associated with writing in public schools and institutions of higher education. Through a series of projects, English 3100 invites students students interested in teaching writing, learning about issues of literacy, and gaining practical tools for improving their own writing and reading to further their conceptions of composition. English 3105: Practical Grammar. Dr. Snow. This course teaches students to recognize and describe sentence components, syntactical relationships, and other verbal patterns. It will also practice application of grammatical principles to editing problems and literary analysis. English 3110: Technical Writing. Laura Anderson. This course provides intensive study of scientific and technical styles and practice at various formats, including reports, proposals, instructional manuals, and professional papers. English 3120: Digital Writing and Publishing. Dr. Gu. English 3130: Business Writing. Advanced composition applied to business writing techniques and problems. English 3140: Editing for Publication. This course will develop the skills and resources needed for preparing unpublished documents for publication. May include academic publishing, textual editing, and commercial applications. English 3150A: Introduction to Creative Writing Poetry. English 3150B: Introduction to Creative Writing Fiction. English 3160: Narrative Techniques. Stephanie Devine. English 3180A: Contemporary Poetry. Dr. Gylys.

4 English 3180B: Contemporary Fiction Craft. Dr. Joseph. English 3230: Survey of Literary Criticism. Dr. Schmidt. The aim of this course is to provide students with an awareness of the monuments of western literary criticism in the context of questions raised by recent literary theory. In order to demonstrate this awareness, students will write one six-eightpage paper on a critic or theorist of their choosing (40% of grade). The paper must analyze and/or apply the theory in question (see discussion of papers on last pages of the syllabus). For example, one might dissect Plato s theory of poetry and then explain how Plato would react to reading American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. There will be a midterm (20 %) and a comprehensive final examination (40% of grade). Both examinations will include passage identification and essay components. English 3266: British-American Culture Seminar II. Analyzes literary and/or historical themes from the perspectives of American and British authors, historical figures, and literatures. Offered by the English and History Departments. English 3280: English Drama. Dr. Richtarik. English 3500: Restoration/Early 18 th -Century English Literature. Dr. Caldwell. English 3700: English Literature Dr. Richtarik. English 3720: Twentieth-century English poetry. Dr. Malamud In this class, we ll read poetry by T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Stevie Smith, Sylvia Plath, and Philip Larkin. (Some people think of Eliot and Plath as American poets: I disagree, and will explain why as we explore their works.) My hypothesis will be, to paraphrase (and contradict) T. S. Eliot s most famous poetic statement, that April is not necessarily the cruelest month. The most common response to modernist poetry conceives it as a bleak, depressing, nihilist, and often very confusing tradition. All those characteristics are indeed part of this movement and period, but more often than not, I believe, those sensibilities are starting points, or launching pads, and we ll find that things get better as we go along: sometimes this happens as each poem progresses toward its conclusion, and more generally, we see it in each poet s overall collection and trajectory. I myself began studying modern poetry because I found it more overwhelmingly bewildering than anything else I had come across. I had a feeling (which in fact, fortunately, turned out to be correct) that I could tackle it, master it, make sense of it all, and I thought that this would be an enormously rewarding achievement (which again, I can report, is indeed the case). English 3820: American Literature, : Mapping Race, Gender, and Region. Dr. Gabler-Hover. English 3850: American Poetry: Kanye vs. Everybody. Dr. Heath. Black Poetry and Poetics from Hughes to Hip-Hop.

5 English 3910: Children s & Young Adult Literature. Dr. Sexton. Students in this course will read a variety of classic and contemporary works in children s and young adult literature. This course will explore various authors and illustrators in genres including the novel, historical fiction and realistic fiction, fantasy and supernatural fiction, the graphic novel, picture books, poetry, and fairy tales. We will explore the distinctions associated with these genres and also examine the ideologies within the works and discuss how literature for children has evolved and in some cases remained the same over time. We will also explore current trends in publishing for young readers and analyze issues and meanings within the course texts regarding culture & history, race & class, gender & sexuality, and censorship. English 3965: African Literature. Dr. Schatteman. This course examines literature from west, east, and southern Africa to explore ways that different writers have responded to their circumstances and their histories, through a variety of genres. The texts chosen for this course will consider two issues that have become increasingly important in African studies: ecology and women s experiences. Consequently, students will engage with debates on personal relationships and on connections between people and their natural surroundings, giving attention to the influence of culture and of global exchanges in determining women s experiences and the state of the environment. Students will engage in exchanges with students at the University of Western Cape in the course of reading selected texts. English 3980: Women s Literature I. Dr. Snow. English 3990: Women s Literature II. Dr. Richardson. This is a survey of literature by British and American women from the 1840s until today. Our approach will be both chronological and thematic. Chronology will allow us to explore the development of feminist ideas in the English-speaking world. Theme will allow us to analyze questions of economic equity, race, sexual orientation, subject position, and educational access. We will read a wide variety of texts in a variety of genres: novel, poem, short story, non-fiction essay, graphic history, and graphic memoir. The course will be a success if each student is present for every session, and has carefully read and thought over the assigned readings. To encourage this kind of success, a significant portion of the grade will be based on informal response papers, unannounced quizzes, and class participation. The rest of the grade will be based on one or two essays (TBD) and a final exam. English 4100: Studies of a Single Author. Daniel Defoe (Dr. Snow); Dickinson and Whitma (Dr. Noble); Flannery O Connor (Dr. Caison). English 4110: Chaucer. Dr. Lightsey. English 4140: Shakespeare, Later Works. Dr. Voss.

6 English 4201: The Bible and the Enlightenment. Dr. Smolinski. English 4303: Writing Studio Peer Tutoring Practicum. Roger Austin. English 4204/Film 4780: Introduction to Writing Interactive Fiction. Dr. Miller. Introduction to Writing Interactive Fiction teaches how to write interactive narratives, about systems necessary for producing computational and generative interactive stories, and on some of the critical literature that surrounds those productions. Interactive fiction, or electronic literature, bridges experiments in generative text (e.g. Nick Montfort, Daniel Howe), writing for games (e.g., Chris Crawford, David Gaider, dialogue systems, the early days of text-based adventure games), and multilinear interactive storytelling (e.g. Emily Short, Robert Pinsky). Students will, after completing this course, better understand how computation can structure storytelling, how to construct multi-linear narratives, how writing intersects with programming, and how to produce their own interactive fictions. English Teaching in English Studies. Dr. Schatteman. This course gives students a foundation in the philosophy and practice of teaching English Studies in secondary education or in other educational settings where literacy (reading and/or writing) is taught. This course will consist of two sections. One section will explore the teaching life, teaching philosophies, and the profession of teaching through the study of scholarly and popular texts, both fictional and nonfictional, which explicitly address teaching. This will be followed by a second section which focuses on the specific challenges and opportunities associated with teaching a particular specialty within the field of English studies. In our class, the specialty we will examine will be postcolonial literature. We will examine both the way that education is addressed as a topic in postcolonial fiction (the history, the issues, the debates, etc.) and the approaches and theories that are most useful in teaching postcolonial studies. English 4300: Senior Seminar in Literary Studies. Dr. Richardson. This capstone course for English majors will be based on the theme Everyday Theory, which is also the title of the theory anthology that we will use in the course. This text encourages real-world understanding and application of theoretical approaches (psychoanalytical, historicist, materialist, gender/race, etc.), and thus affords us as a class the opportunity to explore the transferability of the English major s skill set from an academic to a non-academic setting. During the first half of the course, we will all work together in discussion of everyday theory. During the second half of the semester, each student will work more independently and we will have a mix of one-on-one meetings and whole-class meetings. Each student will produce a culminating research project on a topic of her/his choosing. English 4310B: Senior Seminar in Fiction. Dr. Joseph.

7 English 4320: Senior Seminar in Rhetoric, Composition, and Technical Writing. Dr. Lopez. English 4500: Internship. Offers field experience in writing, editing, and research. Strongly recommended for those wishing to pursue a career in writing or editing. English 4510/English 6510: Grant and Proposal Writing. Dr. Gu.